TREASURED TREASURES

TREASURED TREASURES

“I am also human” is just a shorter and more effective way to say that “I also have feelings, attachments, desires; I also want to have some things just for myself.” All of us wish to own or possess certain thing or things. They are not same for everybody, of course, because human psychology is so diverse. And those things we treasure, we hide them, keep them for ourselves, not having the least intention to share them with anybody else, however generous we may be at other times.
The ‘all of us’ that I have referred to above is not meant only for human beings, it encompasses every single creature on earth, to the most unnoticeable one for everyone has got a heart. Desires are different, priorities vary, needs also show such a wide range that the things that we choose to treasure automatically come filtered through all these criteria. Consequences show that some treasure money, some store things, some secure love, some nurture thoughts, some save feelings, some keep people and the list refuses to end.
A few days back I saw a really pretty sight which all of you would have enjoyed. I had gone to the terrace of my hostel. It has a lot of dry leaves scattered around. For good reasons they have not been cleaned by our unbelievably efficient workers. Anyway, why bore you with the internal problems of the hostel. But this dirty terrace of ours was really a strategic point for somebody else. A crow came from somewhere and it was holding a morsel between his beaks. It was something reddish, might have been a piece of flesh or of some fruit. I don’t remember whether I had my glasses on or not but I could not make out what it was clearly and I dared not go near it, lest it would fly away. And I would not have wanted it to, for all the treasures in the world. So it came and chose a spot in the pile of leaves, kept the morsel and covered it with those dry protectors several times, all the time checking and rechecking if anybody was watching him treasuring his invaluable food.
After two or three days I was upstairs again and to my beautiful luck, I saw a crow come for that hidden treasure. I will not pretend to ambitiously identify it as the same one because it might have been another one sharing the secret. And I don’t even know how many smaller morsels had been made of that original one and how many times it had been bitten bit by bit.
I did not think so deeply at that moment, I just enjoyed the way that creature or those creatures, whom we human consider brainless, managed their lives. I couldn’t help smiling to myself.
Then when I reflected upon the incident later, I realised how all of us have the tendency to treasure some stuff just for ourselves or our dear ones and how we turn selfish at that time. Things we keep differ and so do the reasons for doing so. But broadly, the intentions can be classified under two categories viz. ‘need’ and ‘greed’. Need is generally desperate but greed can either be an innocent desire or the ever ‘evil greed’. And having our dear possessions all to us gives unusual happiness, like the way children become happy seeing their treasures that they generally have the habit to collect and hide from potential rivals and robbers.
Turning selfish in such cases, we cannot blame on animals. Man has the same habit. Animals work for their communities and then, sometimes, indulge in self-service. But more than half the time man does not do the former, does he?